Academic literature on the topic 'Alliance Française (U.S.)'

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of alliance portfolio internationalization (API) on firm performance in the context of exploitation alliances. Design/methodology/approach The hypothesis is tested by applying a panel regression using a sample of 64 airlines over a nine years period. Findings As a result, the study finds a U-shaped relationship between API and firm performance. Research limitations/implications The results are particularly relevant for firms using many exploitation (e.g. marketing) alliances. Practical implications In the context of exploitation alliances, managers should focus either on local partners or to take advantage of partners with a high degree of foreignness. Stuck in the middle seems to be not advantageous. Originality/value Previous work found an S-shaped relationship between portfolio internationalization and firm performance while concentrating on exploration alliances. In contrast, this study shows that exploitation alliance portfolios do not experience a decline of firm performance at high levels of portfolio internationalization.

R&D alliances and knowledge networks are vital to the innovation process. Based on the multilevel network approach, our study comprehensively investigates several knowledge attributes of interorganizational knowledge networks and explores how R&D alliance networks are relevant for the relationship between knowledge attributes and organizational innovation capability. Samples in our research include 86 cliques from 2010 to 2015 in five Chinese high-tech industries’ R&D alliance networks. Results from the negative binomial regression model show that different knowledge attributes show a distinct effect on organizational innovation capability, including linear relationship, inverted U-shaped curve relationship, and inverted S-shaped curve relationship. Besides, our results identify that the central position within R&D alliance networks plays a limited role in the relationship between knowledge attributes and organizational innovation capability. Our findings could be used to help organizations sort out their knowledge attributes of knowledge bases, come to understand the impact of the interaction between the interorganizational knowledge network and R&D alliance network on the organizational innovation capability, and then make a targeted strategy to carry out innovation activities.

This paper intends to describe and discuss major transformations in the U.S.-Thai military and political treaty alliance of 1954 and 1962 durіng the post-Cold War period. The author seeks to reveal milestones in the U.S.-Thai political relations, and the most important factors that affected their defense and security cooperation. Methodology. These transformations are studied at the background of shifts in the international environment and the U. S. foreign policy, Thai domestic developments, and regional processes in Asia Pacific. In this empirical qualitative research, the methods of critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, chronological and comparative approaches are applied. Conclusions. The research has revealed that in the new international environment of 1990s, the tasks of the U.S.-Thai treaty alliance were changed. It was reoriented towards transnational security threats, mostly drugs traffic and terrorism, humanitarian assistance in the case of natural disasters, preparations for peacekeeping operations, et cetera. 2001–2004, when Thai government supported the U.S.-led war on terror, was the most fruitful period of the U.S.-Thai cooperation during the post-Cold war period. Simultaneously, from the very end of Indochina wars Thailand attempted to evade overdependence on the United States in the security area, and sought to balance American influence. Development of close Thailand-China ties served the purpose. The special relations, established between Thailand and China, hindered the achievement of the full potential of the U.S.-Thai alliance. Besides, the U.S. and Thai governments had different perceptions on some important political issues such as human rights, the role of military in society and the governance, policy towards Myanmar, and the security issues in the South China Sea. Since 2006, the U.S.–Thai defense and security cooperation was negatively affected by political instability in Thailand and military coup of 2006. As a result, during the rebalance to East Asia since 2011, the U.S. could not rely on effective cooperation with Thailand, its treaty ally. The military coup of 2014 caused the worst crisis in the U.S.-Thai relations. Though during D. Trump administration they were improved and the new vision of the alliance was agreed upon, this crisis actualized an issue of credibility of Thailand as an ally.

The classification of West Siberian mire vegetation is more or less well developed in the southern part of the forest zone (Lapshina, 2010) while in the northern part of the West Siberian Plain it has received much less study. There are only a small number of publications containing descriptions of mire types and plant communities (Pyavchenko, 1955; Boch et al., 1971; Kirpotin et al., 1995; Smagin, 2003; Neshatayev et al., 2002). This paper presents the classification results for the low-sedge vegetation of waterlogged hollows and Sphagnum lawns, within flat palsa-bogs, ombrotrophic raised bogs and transitional mire complexes, which is assigned to two alliances — Stygio–Caricion limosae Nordhagen 1943 and Scheuchzerion palustris Nordhagen ex Tx. 1937 of the class Scheuchzerio–Caricetea nigrae Tx. 1937. The classification is based on 422 relevés performed in 2004–2019 at 22 plots located between 63° and 75° N in the northern taiga, forest tundra, and southern tundra subzones of West Siberia (Fig. 1). In the most recent summary “Vegetation of Europe…” (Mucina et. al., 2016), the alliance Stygio–Caricion limosae is assigned to the order Sphagno watnstorfii–Tomentypnetalia Lapshina 2010, however this does not seem conclusive. Communities of this order are closely associated with rich fens, often spring fens fed by ground water, which does not correspond to the real conditions in which communities of this alliance are developed. Ecologically, in the current structure of the class Scheuchzetio–Caricetea nigrae (Peterka et al, 2017), the alliance Stygio–Caricion limosae has taken the true place of the alliance Rhynchosporion albae Koch 1926 (ICPN, Art. 36), which was initially unambiguously associated with the order Caricetalia nigrae Koch 1926 based on the original relevés and diagnostic species (Rhynchspora alba, Agrostis canina, sphagnum mosses of sec. Subsecunda). Therefore, we also consider the alliance Stygio–Caricion limosae belonging to the order Caricetalia nigrae, where it fits better judging by its ecological and floristic features. The differential species combination of the alliance Stygio–Caricion limosae in the northern part of West Siberia includes Carex limosa, Drosera obovata, Juncus stygius, Gymnocolea inflata, Sphagnum perfoliatum, S. platyphyllum, S. subsecundum, Utricularia minor, U. ochroleuca, Warnstorfia exannulata, and W. fluitans. Within this alliance, two new associations with subassociations have been described: Utricularo ochroleucae–Caricetum limosae and Sphagno perfoliati–Caricetum rotundatae, of which the first one occurs in the northern taiga mires, while the second one in the forest tundra and southern tundra subzones. The order Scheuchzerietalia palustris Nordhagen ex Tx. 1937 comprises ombrotrophic vegetation of Sphagnum lawns and bog hollows (Mucina et al., 2016) and currently includes the only alliance Scheuchzerion palustris. Its typical boreal suballiance Scheuchzerienion palustris suball. nov. (nomenclature type — lectotypus hoc. loco: ass. Scheuchzerietum palustris Tüxen, 1937: 61) is represented by two associations: Eriophoro vaginati–Sphagnetum baltici and Carici limosae–Sphagnetum jenseni. Their distribution to the north is limited by the mire complexes of the northern taiga. Further north similar habitats are occupied mainly by communities of the predominantly subarctic suballiance Caricion rariflorae. Within this suballiance, two associations — Carici rotundatae–Sphagnetum baltici and Carici rotundatae–Sphagnetum lindbergii — are widely distributed over the entire gradient from the northern taiga to the southern tundra. The ass. Carici rariflorae–Sphagnetum baltici occurs only occasionally and is bound to the forest tundra and southern tundra. Statistical processing of the entire data set was performed to confirm the classification results and make a number of syntaxonomic decisions. The results of t-SNE ordination (t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding method) (van der Maaten, Hinton, 2008) confirmed the validity and expediency of separating oligotrophic and mesooligotrophic low-sedge communities of hollows and fens not only at the alliance level, but also at the order level. Despite certain physiognomic and floristic similarities, the location points of the two alliances in multidimensional space are well differentiated and do not overlap with each other (Fig. 10). Calculation of the floristic similarity degree of relevés with regard to species abundance and visualization of the statistical processing results have clearly demonstrated that the entire relevé array of oligotrophic sphagnum lawns in the alliance Scheuchzerion palustris can be divided by the dominant sphagnum moss species into separate clusters, within which dominant grass layer clusters could also be distinguished. Given that, in the future, the formal statistical processing of large sets of geobotanical data will become an increasingly important tool to underpin syntaxonomic decisions, this fact cannot be ignored. In this connection, we propose to review the current practice of identifying associations of mire vegetation by the dominant species of vascular plants and sub-associations by the dominant moss species. The latters are of primary importance in the poor-species plant communities of waterlogged hollows and fens, because they are more sensitive to ecological conditions of habitats, which ultimately determine the entire floristic composition and community structure.

An integral part of the U. S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Turbine Systems Program is the Industry/University consortium, formed to strengthen the gas turbine technology base among American universities. The Advanced Gas Turbine Systems Research program is sponsored by DOE, directed by industry leaders, and the universities conduct the research. This close alliance assures that the research is accomplished in a timely fashion, in areas critical to industry needs. In the past year and a half the consortium has been organized, members solicited, Requests For Proposals issued, and contracts awarded. Some 60 universities in the U. S. are participating. This paper will discuss how the program was initiated, how it functions, and will review some of the interesting research that is under way in support of the overall ATS goals.

Battelle Energy Alliance (BEA), LLC, has developed processes and equipment for a pilot-scale hot isostatic pressing (HIP) treatability study to stabilize and volume reduce radioactive calcine stored at Idaho National Laboratory (INL). In 2009, the U. S. Department of Energy signed a Record of Decision with the state of Idaho selecting HIP technology as the method to treat 5,800 yd3 (4,400 m3) of granular zirconia and alumina calcine produced between 1953 and 1992 as a waste byproduct of spent nuclear fuel reprocessing. Since the 1990s, a variety of radioactive and hazardous waste forms have been remotely treated using HIP within INL hot cells. To execute the remote process at INL, waste is loaded into a stainless-steel or aluminum can, which is evacuated, sealed, and placed into a HIP furnace. The HIP simultaneously heats and pressurizes the waste, reducing its volume and increasing its durability. Two 1-gal cans of calcine waste currently stored in a shielded cask were identified as candidate materials for a treatability study involving the HIP process. Equipment and materials for cask handling and calcine transfer into INL hot cells, as well as remotely operated equipment for waste can opening, particle sizing, material blending, and HIP can loading have been designed and successfully tested. These results demonstrate BEA’s readiness for treatment of INL calcine.